There is no evidence that CDEP led to many Aboriginal …

There is no evidence that CDEP led to many Aboriginal people getting a real job.
In Central Australia it was common knowledge that CDEP coordinators had an official job and an unofficial one, the latter was to do the work that Aboriginal CDEP participants were employed to do.
Failure to perform both duties led to dismissal, or stress related medical conditions.
Yes RJCP was a joke but very disheartening for the job service staff rather than their Aboriginal clients.
The new plan to engage remote Aboriginal people in work will put pressure on local employers such as stores and schools to “employ” more staff and managers will be in the firing line if they report absences and pay is cut.
Supervising the reluctant employees will be very difficult and time consuming.
For all the rhetoric about wanting jobs there is little evidence that remote Aboriginal residents want to embrace work and they certainly will resist performing it for the dole.

Joan Also Commented

Bush jobs for dole: 26 weeks, 25 hours per weekBob Durnan. We agree that Centrecorp is a private company.
You say that “The government seeded a couple of its investments many years ago”.
In fact the Federal Government has granted this private company a total of $25 million of tax payer funds.
The Federal Government also provided cheap loans to this private company.
As a result of taxpayer generosity Centrecorp now has more than $50 million in accumulated assets.
It provides charitable donations but provided hardly any until it was audited and told to do so.
It said it was going to assist Aboriginal people get jobs but its record of providing jobs for Aboriginal people in the businesses it owns is very poor.
You say that “ow the members and directors of these trusts invest and distribute their own funds is their own business”.
These funds may legally be “their own” but this is an outrageous misuse and misappropriation of tax payer money.

Bush jobs for dole: 26 weeks, 25 hours per weekThe small proportion of government grants were not small in dollar terms, nearly $4 million for the Kings Canyon purchase for a start.
Was it really the Federal government’s intention for its grants and loans to be funnelled into a secretive organisation that appears to have no obligation to fund anything at all, except substantial fees for its directors, such as the CEO of the Land Council?
Of course any well heeled organisation can pay smart accountants and lawyers to engineer an arms length arrangement.
They can create a legally compliant, wealthy corporate empire that technically isn’t owned by the CLC, makes its own decisions and isn’t required to distribute its profits to Aboriginal people as would be expected of a charitable trust.
This may be technically / legally OK.
But it’s just plain wrong to have so much money accumulating without benefiting Aboriginal people beyond a few charitable grants.
Aboriginal people are left to turn to the taxpayer – the same source of much of Centrecorp’s wealth in the first place.
At the very least Centrecorp should be made to repay all its government grants and backpay commercial interest rates on its loans and give up its charitable tax status.

Recent Comments by Joan

End of search for Monika BillenMy drone flying friends say that not finding Monika is a disgrace.
Forget the old tech ground searches.
Fly the latest high tech drones equipped with high-resolution cameras or video and analyse the results.
She would have been found on day two after being reported missing.
After an initial cost of perhaps $100,000 the drone system would pay for itself within a year and the tourist industry would be better off.

The financial crisis in the Northern TerritoryJames, I suspect that remote community infrastructure does add to the NT’s revenue stream, as it always has. Case in point (admittedly dated):
Federal grant of $500,000 for remote preschool.
NT admin tax $250,000.
Old asbestos clad science block sent to the community (instead of dumping it}.
Over the next three months, Alice Springs tradies renovate the building.
There is no money left for painting so that becomes a school expense.
Darwin designed building has no security so is broken into and trashed, then closed for six months as the school tries to get it repaired.
So the NT Government gets a windfall profit, Alice Springs businesses do well and the community gets a high maintenance asbestos building.

At last, public will get a say on Anzac Oval: Town CouncilGunner has made the right call on the location of the proposed gallery and offered substantial funding.
No other sensible and economically viable location has been proposed.
The gallery will probably operate at a loss as does the Desert Park.
To be sustainable the loss must be minimised and it must add value to our tourist businesses.
South of the Gap / at the Desert Part are not suitable locations.
The Greens are engaged in misguided economically damaging democracy.
They are doing the same by using their position on the Water Board to slow down mining development at Mt Pearce.
This action threatens the offer of generous funding.

The millions and the miseryEugene’s Mate: “Unreasonably negative and incorrigibly antagonistic attitude towards Congress pathological denial of Congress’s achievements? Very unfairly, maligning Congress.”
Any organisation that gets more than $40m a year of taxpayer money, has $20m unspent and has a stake in CentreCorp with assets of more than $50m absolutely needs to be held accountable.
It worries me that you fall back on excuses such as saying that poverty is the main driver of renal disease (and of course Congress can’t change that).
How about, a sedentary lifestyle, living in squalor, poor diet, alcohol and smoking, all of which Congress should be able to do something about.
But they haven’t despite all the millions.
A new approach is needed.
Take diabetes:
Although there are other factors, diabetes is a major cause of end stage renal disease. Many of us have watched the progression from diabetes to end stage over the years.
I’ve personally seen it a dozen times or more.
Uncontrolled diabetes is rampant in our community and the deaths are mounting.
Congress has largely failed to stem the tide so we need to try something else.
That is a medical approach.
Instead of expensively trying to change behaviour and failing we need new drugs and medical devices.
That means more money for research and probably less for Congress.
Of course that is confronting and will get the reaction we see from you.
But Aboriginal health is bigger than Congress and is the priority.
A medical approach has the potential to save many hundreds of millions of dollars and improve Aboriginal lives on a large scale.
That claim cannot be made about Congress.

The millions and the miseryEvelyne, the research to quantify the extent of HTLV-1 was carried out years ago and the results were scary for Aboriginal people.
There will be a large death toll in coming years.
Very little is being done to discover a drug to treat it.
Your question has broader implications.
Should the taxpayer keep funding preventative programs to the extent we do when they are not working?
Wouldn’t Aboriginal health be improved far more by putting the money into the development of medical responses.
For example, there is an urgent need for implanted insulin delivery devices that require diabetics to do nothing.
There are several life threatening diseases, HTLV-1 being just one, that urgently need medical approaches such as drug treatments for prevention and/or cure.
Aboriginal health would be improved far more by redirecting at least some of the tens of millions wasted on Congress to researching new treatments.